Wyndeham Roche Announces Restructuring Program

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Press release from the issuing company

LONDON – Wyndeham Group is proposing to make 58 redundancies that will affect all departments at its Wyndeham Roche web offset printing subsidiary in Cornwall. A 30-day consultation process has commenced today.

Following the acquisition of the St Ives Web Division by Walstead Investments, Wyndeham Group's parent, on 6 April 2011, a review of the Wyndeham Roche business was undertaken. The review concluded that due to the ongoing poor financial performance of the company it will be necessary to implement cost savings.

Like all manufacturing businesses, and particularly those in the web offset sector, Wyndeham Roche is a victim of significant raw material increases and these, combined with rising utility costs, have put already low margin work under even more pressure. The web offset printing market in the UK has, until recently, experienced significant overcapacity and volumes continue to decline. Consequently, market prices are at an all time low. These dynamics mean that overheads are too high in relation to current revenues. The changes at Wyndeham Roche are considered necessary despite the significant capital investment in the plant.

Paul Utting, Chief Executive of Wyndeham Group, commented: "Following our recent announcements at Wyndeham Apple and Wyndeham Plymouth it is disappointing to have to give notice of this additional restructuring. However, as we have said previously, the web offset sector in the UK is under severe stress following unprecedented increases in raw material and utility costs compounded by reducing volumes of work. Against this backdrop, even an operation like Wyndeham Roche, with modern equipment, needs to make changes in order to remain viable. It is inevitable that similar cost saving programmes will be implemented across the sector."